


Dark Horse

by bookhousegirl



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Mob, Boston Bruins, M/M, Providence Bruins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-15 04:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11797956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookhousegirl/pseuds/bookhousegirl
Summary: Frank knew. From that very first touch of skin, from that very first glide of fingers over his wrist. He would devour this boy. He would take that golden, optimistic life, paint it black, swallow his world whole.Frank Vatrano, pizza boy, smalltown criminal, baby mobster in the making, attempts to make his one life count.





	Dark Horse

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is set in the Providence side of the Bruins mobverse.
> 
> I wanted to write this for a long time. Trying not to lose my mind about other things was a good reason to do it. Thanks so much for reading!

 

***

 

Rule one was not to question the job.

 

He learned this two years ago.

 

A guy named Tommy, who looked like the president of a frat instead of a professional criminal to Frank, slipped him fifty bucks over the counter at the shop, as he paid for his two slices and can of coke, and asked, “Hey, do me a favor?”

 

A fifty was a fifty and Frank was never one to give two shits about people’s personal choices, so he waited outside on Main Street, in the parking lot by the self-storage place. The sun had started to slip below the horizon, making the crumbling, abandoned Victorians of the neighborhood look like a movie set in the dusky February light. Even though it was cold, Frank fiddled with his phone for something to do, and nodded as the drunk dude stumbled towards the gas station.

 

Eventually some other guy, less boringly handsome and frat-like, sidled up and handed over a wrinkled brown paper bag, like his mom used to pack a tuna sandwich in for school. It dropped like a stone when Frank took it, and yeah, it was definitely a gun in there and a stack of bills too.

 

“You Tommy’s new kid?” The guy did a sweep of the street with his eyes, like he was unsure they should spend time on chit chat.

 

“Sure,” agreed Frank. He blew on his hands to warm them up. “Anything else?”

 

“Nope,” the guy answered. “See you next week.”

 

Frank spit on the ground before he turned to go back towards Antonio’s. “Don’t be late next week,” he shot out, because he felt like it.

 

The guy lit his cigarette, held it between stained fingers, poised at his rough lips before taking a drag. “Fuck you, kid.”

 

Frank laughed. “Fuck you too.”

 

Back inside the shop, Tommy was just finishing his pepperoni slice, chewing on the crust cheerfully. “We cool?” he asked.

 

“Yeah,” said Frank, and he knew enough from movies and the Sopranos to put the sticky, plastic menu on top of the bag before he slid it across the table to Tommy.

 

Tommy nodded and smiled with teeth that seemed menacing, like he’d leave a set of perfect marks on Frank’s flesh if he bit down, hard. “See you next week,” he said and walked out to the jangle of the bell on the door.

 

The swat of his mom’s dishtowel on his ass brought him back to reality quickly enough. “Where you been, Frankie? Get ready!” she chastised. He swept through the dining room, dumping the cans into a recycling tub, and tossing out the greasy paper plates. He quickly shrugged into a clean white button up shirt from a hanger in the cramped office, and kissed his gold cross necklace before tucking it against his skin, under his t-shirt.

 

The wail of a siren heading up Belmont, probably to the X, which got rowdier as night approached, was nothing unusual. He crawled into the backseat of their Explorer and fingered the fifty dollar bill in his slacks pocket, so crisp and new that it hardly felt like real money. His big brother argued with their mom about staying out late again, and his dad set the radio on the Bruins to shut everybody up as they drove to mass at St. Michael’s, so the rest of it felt like any regular Sunday.

 

On his fourth visit to the shop, Tommy explained to him, “Rule one is don’t ever question the job,” and Frank let it roll off his back like cold sweat. He had never thought to question a fucking thing about any of it.

 

***

 

His mom reminds him for the thousandth time that a new employee is starting, and that she expects Frank to show him the ropes, to train him. “Instill good habits,” she had said and Frank made a joke about reminding this dude to wash his hands after he shits, which earned him a hard cuff on the ear.

 

Most of Frank’s time these days is orchestrated, to a science. His time in the ring takes longer that day, because he let some idiot newbie, green as god’s earth, borrow his gloves and it took him half an hour to track them down. Frank’s eye is tender after getting pounded on his right side, from Mueller’s wicked jab, and they all laugh that he should put a frozen sausage, or a bag of mozzarella on it. Mueller doesn’t laugh at him though, since Frank’s pretty sure he has a broken hand right now.

 

The traffic coming into downtown and the construction buildup for the MGM makes things a mess, and he is fifteen minutes late when he slams his beat up Civic into park and runs to Main Street to meet Randy for the drop.

 

“Oh, look who bothered to show up, Mr. Punctuality,” smirks Randy. “Thanks for making me wait in the fucking cold, Frank.” He hands over the bag, this time an inconspicuous paper bag with handles from Price Chopper. Frank rolls his eyes and gives Randy the finger and books it back to Antonio’s, to unlock the backdoor with his keys. It is getting cold, even though he loves October, the month where the Sox are hopefully still playing and the Bruins are starting, and jobs for Tommy start ramping up. He twists the dial on the thermostat to get the heat running and throws the bag and his own fleece jacket in the office.

 

“Get in here,” he orders, to the humbly pretty blond guy waiting at the front, who looks to be about the same age. Frank doesn’t apologize. He’s out of the habit these days.

 

“I’m Austin,” offers the pretty guy, staring with eyes as pale as gunmetal. “What happened to you?”

 

“Nothing.” Frank touches his eyelid and winces. “I do boxing in the mornings. Here.” He tosses Austin an apron and stoops down to spin through the safe combination while Austin is occupied with getting ready. His parents won’t be in today, they’re handling an electrical issue at the State Street shop, so it’s cool to leave the bag from Randy inside the safe.

 

“You don’t have to wear such nice clothes,” he tells Austin. The guy is overdressed and looks like he’s going for an interview at a bank rather than about to work a nine hour shift with fryers and pizza ovens. There hadn’t been a chance to change after his workout at the ring, so he strips off his old UMass t-shirt and struggles into a plain black shirt that was a size too small for him.

 

“Cool ink,” Austin says, and he looks like a shocked baby animal. He’s cute. And unprepared.

 

Frank ignores him, what does this little preppy asshole know anyway, and runs through the procedures. Open at ten, defrost the dough, get the ovens warmed up, check on the prep, do the sauce and the veg if they’re low. In the walkin, they discover the onions are indeed low, and Frank lets Austin drag out a cardboard box full of them, from the lowest shelf of the wire racks.

 

“You can chop.” He tosses an onion at Austin, expecting him to fumble it. Instead, Austin grabs it, mid air, and somehow sets four more of them onto the large cutting board, two in each gigantic hand, and goes to work.

 

Frank clears his throat and tries to say, diplomatically, “You’re good with a knife.”

 

“I’ve worked in restaurants before. I’m not some silver spoon-fed idiot,” Austin grumbles. “I can show you,” he offers, his slender fingers circling Frank’s wrist and making Frank’s breath seize in his throat.

 

Forgetting his own rule about apologies, Frank mutters out, “Sorry,” and turns on the radio to listen to a bunch of true idiots call in and speculate on the Bruins chances this season after getting bounced from the playoffs early. That’s when Frank learns that Austin is from Michigan and also plays hockey, because that’s what people in Michigan, and Massachusetts, do. “People there like the Red Wings,” he volunteers and Frank gives him a _look_ and quips, “Sucks to be them.”

 

Austin laughs harder than necessary at that and moves on to the mushrooms.

 

At 4:30 Tommy arrives, like always and gives Austin the once-over while ordering his slices and coke. “Does he want in too?”

 

“Jesus, fuck, no.” Frank snorts and looks back to where Austin is busily organizing some takeout cartons. “This is my parents’ place, it’s their fucking life. That might not mean a lot to you, but I don’t want any more trouble than there already is.”

 

Tommy shrugs. “Think about it. Everyone can serve a purpose. And Coach has still got his eye on you, for something big,” Tommy reminds him, as if he needed a reminder. As if he is blind to the fact that he gave Tommy a grocery bag with twenty-thousand cash in it.

 

In the winter, and Frank considers this the winter, they close at eight. He has Austin do the register and shows him how to write the tally slip for the nightly deposit bag. The tips jar has a pathetic fifteen dollars in it, and he lets Austin take ten.

 

“Do you want to get a beer?” Austin asks quietly, staring intently at Frank. “I know I just met you and I work for your parents. But if you wanted to.”

 

Frank licks his lips and sees those bright clear eyes track the movement of his mouth. He touches the tip of his pencil to his tongue, like he’s seen people do in black-and-white films, and jots down his number on some receipt paper from the register. “I can’t tonight. I gotta do the deposit and then light a candle before home. But some other time for sure.” The lies come easily.

 

In his car, after the stops at the bank, and St. Michael’s, because those were things that he actually did do, and the back room of a bar where he traded blowjobs with a guy from the internet, Frank lets his eyes slip closed, and tunes the radio to the Bruins game, just like his dad always did. Austin had looked weirdly hopeful when he waved goodbye, like Frank had been a friend and not a gigantic dick the whole day. Like Frank was _giving_ him something. He knows he’s even a bigger dick because that thought sort of turns him on, a pure lamb like Austin willing to take the scraps Frank was throwing down.

 

He showers at home, and still feels gross, from the early morning boxing or the long day at the shop probably. He sticks the three benjamins, from Tommy, for the job, into an envelope and neatly writes the date on the back. This little ritual makes him feel better somehow. Like a moment of control, a brief glimpse of a plan or a purpose.

 

The exact same way, he wishes on the candle, before blowing out the long match and driving home from the church as slowly as possible.

 

 _A new life_ is what he asks for _._ Every single time.

 

***

 

Some of Tommy’s sayings sound a lot like hockey. Keep your head in the game. Minimize mistakes.

 

Like hockey, he wasn’t sure what the end point was. Tommy promised him opportunity. Whatever that was sounded just as impractical and impossible as hockey. When his parents depended on him to hold down the Six Corners shop, when the torn ligaments in his foot kept him from doing anything hockey-wise since high school, no option seemed like the best option.

 

Austin was still playing in a rec league though, and on slow afternoons, when the lunch rush had finished and Frank’s cousin Tessa was there to operate the register, they went out in the parking lot to pass a ball back and forth to each other before the growing shortness of the days forced them back inside. He had to switch it up, since Austin was a right shot, until he started just leaving his stick in the trunk of the Civic. “Don’t let me catch you goofing off at work, Frankie,” his mother said when she found out and it made Frank want to laugh out loud, like there wasn’t so much more he could be in deep shit for.

 

Deep down, under the covers in his room, or when there’s a velvet cushion under his knees in a light-filled sanctuary, he can admit that Tommy, and Randy, are probably in the mob. He knows how things operate down in Providence. How the whole city is basically organized crime disguised as a working government.  They're paying for his time at the boxing gym. The stack of tidy envelopes grows fatter by the week. All this has not escaped him.

 

But some days, mostly with Austin, his obliviousness is sky high. Like he can skate by, kneading dough on a counter with a friend that he kind of wants to fuck, and shooting balls in a parking lot in one of the worst neighborhoods in town.

 

What he and Austin are doing doesn’t even feel like playing to Frank, like just going through the motions with no purpose other than to share in something that everybody in Western Mass shared in. But Austin likes it, and does funny things to make Frank laugh. He drops down to a one-kneed celly when he snipes a shot into the box that they had made the goal and he wears a fucking Lidstrom jersey one day.

 

“Make me,” he challenges, with a surprising amount of swagger, when Frank yells at him to take it off, and Frank has to restrain himself from tackling Austin to the pavement, he’s so turned on.

 

“Dude, you’re so good,” Austin says again, as they return their equipment to the cars. He leans back against the side of Frank’s Civic and shakes his head. “Do you ever want to try playing again?”

 

“Of course I want to. But my foot hurts after about ten minutes of skating. And yeah, I was good, but a lot of kids were good, and in the end, it was just a dream, like it ends up being for most people.” Frank slams the trunk and hops on top of it, even though he already can feel the cold of the metal seep through his jeans. “It started to feel stupid. To want it.”

 

With a voice as soft as a wave, Austin leans forward and steps into the open space between Frank’s thighs, like it was somewhere he was used to being. “I don’t think it’s stupid. To want it,” he whispers.

 

The heavy back door opens with a clank and Tessa shouts, “Where are you? I need a meatball grinder with provolone and you know I can’t reach the oven door!”

 

“I’m trying to figure it out,” Frank says, sliding off the car and standing face to face with Austin. They’re the same height. He always forgets that. “But I can’t just have another life.”

 

If this were another life, if Frank were another person, they could be friends.

 

Maybe they’d have been on the same kiddie team, sharing water bottles and having spitting contests on the bench. They’d get in trouble for pulling pranks on the goalie, and have to stay late organizing the equipment. Maybe they’d play baseball in the summer, Frank swinging for the dilapidated wooden fence to make Austin laugh. There would be long days, getting dizzy at Six Flags and lazy trips to the Cape with each other’s families. They’d go to college and play, tear apart the CCHA or Hockey East.

 

In his dreams they always have to share a bed for some really preposterous reason. “I want to camp in a tent with you, on the beach,” Austin would say, his face so close that Frank could see every single pale eyelash, could trace the barely perceptible place where a stick or a puck or a fist broke his perfect nose. “Let’s sneak out and do it,” like they’re just kids, roaming free with dirty feet and skinned knees, every wish a blood oath, every promise a sacred vow.

 

“I want to do everything with you,” Frank says back, making those same promises foolishly, before leaning in to kiss that sweet face.

 

In the morning, he wakes uncomfortably hard and alone, and the day begins way too early, no sun on either end of his schedule now. He gets up and jerks off in the quiet of the shower, to the hiss of the water and the dark thought of tugging on Austin’s bright hair while getting sucked off.

 

Wanting it. Any of it, is the most dangerous thing he’s thinking these days.

 

***

 

If Austin knows anything about what Frank’s game is, he covers beautifully, so maybe everyone does have a purpose, a truly useful purpose, other than being a target. “He just went out to make a phone call,” Austin is saying, with a totally believable smile to Frank’s dad, when Frank comes cruising in late to open.

 

Randy hasn’t been on time the past month and Frank doesn’t know if it’s him or Randy who’s getting sloppy. He thanks Austin with his eyes and retreats to the office with his dad to get the inventory sheets for ordering that he forgot about.

 

“I was wondering,” starts Austin, while they’re closing up. Frank has the deposit bag in his mouth, the zipper is stuck and he’s trying to yank it open using his teeth, and he looks up and can see that Austin is flushed. He’s fidgety with the register roll. “I know you don’t play anymore. But I’m in this league, you know, in Northampton, and we actually are playing for the title tomorrow night. There’s a trophy, I know it sounds stupid, and we’ll probably all go to the brewpub afterwards, but. It could be fun, if you were there.”

 

Frank drops the bag on the counter and sighs. “First off, congrats man. I hope you kill it. That’s completely awesome. But you know I can’t really hang out. I’ve got the deposit, and then the church thing.” He hasn’t done the other things in a while.

 

“Okay, I know. Never mind. I’m gonna go,” Austin says, gesturing towards the door. “I’ll be off tomorrow so I can play, but see you Friday?”

 

“Yep, for sure. I’ll make you a champions pizza.”

 

Austin throw his head back with a laugh and Frank wants to lick a line down to the hollow of his throat. “That would be...the best,” he says, like Frank just offered him something of value instead of a fucking pizza.

 

He spends Friday daydreaming about what they might put on the pizza during the slow hours, and he realizes that he doesn’t even know what Austin likes. Finally it’s almost eight and he’s about to flip the exterior lights off when the bell jangles and he rushes out front to find Tommy and a new guy, Zac, sitting in a booth. “Frankie!” Zac greets him with false congeniality. “We’ve got something for you.”

 

Coach Bruce wants to try him out on a real job, not just doing the drop, or the fence anymore. He puts the details in his phone and wishes he were working with Randy, not Zac for this. But Zac has experience, so Tommy says, in the big leagues.

 

“Hey,” says Austin, quiet, coming through the door. Frank blinks. There’s a trophy in one hand and a six pack in the other and he looks exhaustedly concerned. “What’s going on?”

 

“Just about to close up.”

 

Zac snarks, “Who’s your sodapop,” towards Austin and Frank fantasizes about smashing his face into glass.

 

Tommy shakes his head and pulls Zac up by the elbow. “Let’s go,” he says. There’s a copy of the Boston Globe on the table. Even though Frank hasn’t seen it yet, he’s sure there is an envelope full of bills underneath. “We’ll be in touch.”

 

When they pull away with the roar of the exhaust from Tommy’s truck, Frank explodes. “Why did you come back here?” He leans against the counter and drops his head in his hands. “I don’t want anyone else to be part of this. You shouldn’t have been here for any of that.”

 

“I wanted to celebrate with you. You couldn’t come to the game, but I thought we could -” he trails off, and he looks helpless. There’s a huge, ridiculously bad looking hockey trophy on the floor by the door. Frank can’t do anything but hug him tight.

 

“Okay,” Frank whispers into Austin’s shoulder. “Let’s just make the pizza and hang out, and we can forget all of this, please?”

 

In the kitchen, the familiarity of the routine washes over Frank, him stretching the dough and spooning out the sauce, and Austin slicing the onion, like he did the first day he started, when those hands mesmerized Frank for a full minute or two. Hands that could chop an onion with precision, fingers that could curl around a man’s throat and cut off his breathing with a squeeze. Fingers that could stroke Frank’s dick until he came in his pants, his breathing cut off in the same painful, fantastic way.

 

“Austin,” Frank says, and Austin looks up. “I just -” and he can’t figure out the words to say. Instead he shoves Austin against the cool stainless steel of the refrigerator and their mouths find each other. Austin’s eyes slide closed and he moans when Frank coaxes his lips apart, greedily meets Frank’s tongue.

 

Frank knew. From that very first touch of skin, from that very first glide of fingers over his wrist. He would devour this boy. He would take that golden, optimistic life, paint it black, swallow his world whole.

 

Austin’s hands are all over the place, scrabbling along Frank’s back, underneath his t-shirt, and his hips are canting upward, like he wants to rub himself all over Frank.

 

“Can we bake the pizza at your place?” Frank asks, breathless, and Austin thunks his head hard against the fridge, he’s laughing so much.

 

Austin wheezes through his laughter and says, “Yes. Yes.”

 

Later when they’re tangled up in flannel sheets, Frank curls against Austin’s chest. “So what were you like in Michigan? Were you on the honor roll? What was it like to be prom king?”

 

Austin threads his fingers through Frank’s thick hair and laughs softly. “Frankie,” he says sadly, “I love how you always think the best of me. I wasn’t the prom king. I was just a dork who played hockey, like you.”

 

“Fuck you, I wasn’t a dork.”

 

Austin’s eyes close and he buries his face in Frank’s hair. “I was just a regular guy. Wishing for a different life,” he says.

 

***

 

Tommy has talked to him about falling in love. Frank isn’t sure if he’s serious about it or not, whether the way Tommy’s eyes go distant have anything to do with it, or if it’s just that he needs his prescription adjusted.  Frank became a negative on the moral scale, and fell in love with a certain kind of violence long ago, or long before he started dreaming about things he thought he could never have, so he doesn’t think this pep talk applies to him anyway.

 

Still, when Zac botches the money for the gun they’re supposed to pick up, and Frank’s cradling Austin’s bruised face between his hands, the rule maybe makes sense. The water from the tap in the men’s room at Antonio’s runs the same color as the blood he’s trying to wash off his hand before it goes clear. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he swears, and presses a bag of frozen pineapple against Austin’s cheek.

 

“Frank, I’m okay,” Austin insists, and he pulls himself up off the toilet. He examines the bloom of blue and purple coloring Frank’s knuckles and kisses the broken skin. “We’re both okay.”

 

Frank shakes his head in disbelief. “It could’ve really easily not been okay.”

 

“Yeah! Because Zac messed up the information. Not because of me and not because of you.” Austin lunges forward and kisses him hard. “We’re a good team,” he breathes into Frank’s ear, sending shivers all through Frank’s body.

 

“Jesus.” Frank searches Austin’s face. “You want it as much as I do, don’t you.”

 

“I want you,” Austin says, kissing Frank again.

 

Frank undoes the button on Austin’s jeans and works his hand in between the denim and along the soft baby fine hair surrounding Austin’s cock. “I want you,” he answers back, and breaks the kiss to slide down to the unforgiving tile floor.

 

Austin’s breathing stutters and becomes shaky as Frank takes him in his mouth and works the base of Austin’s cock with his hand. “Oh god, oh god,” he chants, and Frank meets his eyes when he looks down. It’s a shameless trick to make the other guy come, he knows this, as he blinks with big wide eyes and hungrily takes in as much of Austin as he can. “Yes, yes,” Austin cries out as he lets go and comes in Frank’s mouth.

 

Austin bends over the sink, and lets Frank open him up slowly, with his fingers and his mouth, watches Frank slick up with come and spit, and wild eyes.

 

“I’ll do whatever you want, go wherever you want,” Frank says afterwards, when they’re cleaned up. They sit in the kitchen with cans of coke and microwaved lasagna balanced on their knees, the way Frank would do when he was a kid, when he was too young to help out at the shop. “If we go to Providence to work with Tommy, or make it to Boston, I don’t care. I just want to do it with you.”

 

***

 

The whole truth, and Frank doesn’t need Tommy or anyone else to tell him this one: Springfield Mass is a shit hole. The tony pastoral of the Berkshires where Connecticut snobs listen to Yo-Yo Ma, and the pretentious, over-superiority of Northampton, of Amherst, don’t touch the grime and grit of Springfield. He knows, because he grew up here, saw his parents pour their money and dreams into a life here, that you work hard at a job that paid the bills, take care of your own shit, pray, marry a good girl, and hope you didn’t get nicked in the crossfire. You come into this life, blessed by the priest and screaming, and you leave, hopefully at peace.

 

There is no getting out. That is not part of the reality. Guys from Springfield, the Frankie Vatranos of the world, don’t make it, in Boston or anywhere else. No room to breathe here, no space to dream.

 

He has ten thousand dollars spread out over three bank accounts between here and East Longmeadow and Wilbraham, and another eight in cash, in a stack of neat white envelopes in a box of Topps trading cards in his parents’ basement. It has to be for something.

 

But in a tiny apartment in Agawam, just south of the city, Frank closes his eyes and runs the pad of his thumb over Austin’s lips. As the sun comes up and creeps through the cheap plastic blinds, Austin sucks on his finger until he’s hard and then kisses him everywhere and it feels so good that he forgets and begins the dream again.

 

There isn’t another life. This one is all that he has.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Frank Vatrano and Austin Czarnik were both undrafted. They came to the Providence Bruins from college (UMass Amherst and Miami of Ohio) at the end of the 2014-15 season. They were (still are?) roommates. Tommy Cross is captain of the PBruins. And until last season, Bruce Cassidy was the team's coach.
> 
> [Here's a video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq48UBWG8gQ) from the Road to the Winter Classic, of Frank at his parents' pizza shop in Springfield. In it, his dad talks a bit about how it's rare for kids from Western Mass to make it.
> 
> Apologies to Zac Rinaldo fans! I had to make someone sort of a screw-up. And well, he kinda was.
> 
> Also, I have spent a lot of time in Springfield Mass, and it's a very tough place to be.


End file.
